Hey guys... just reading that poem makes me cry again. I still cry every day. It's really hard when you're by yourself at night. I miss Danny. I made a shrine to him in my room. It's been a few months now and though the pain isn't... as consuming, it's still with me all the time. The time we had together, his youthful eyes and laughter, they haunt me, you know. It's still not right that we are here "enjoying" life and it is over for him, so young, so full of potential. I keep wondering why it has to be this way. And why he couldn't have been pulled out of the water, why those boys who were with him don't care about us, because they never call. I keep wishing I was old enough to start a family, that my ex boyfriend was a good man so I could give into his pressure to go home. But my path is set.... it's so strange but in the aftermath I see clear evidence that we (mom and I) are doing as God intends, that he has plans for us and taking my brothers away are part of the plan. For my mother at least, no clearer evidence could have been presented that God is here and He does care. My mom was devastated to be here, after her head cleared. She quit her well paying corporate job to slave away for my vengeful, tyrannical father. Things were not looking good - on top of the grief she had to suffer his abuse to pay the bills. She was depressed and felt she made a huge mistake in the wake of the grief. I felt bad b/c I insisted that God wanted us here, to help my Dad (before he betrayed us) to be where Dan was, to be in this small town away from the city, away from my ex bf. I prayed and I really thought we were doing the right thing. Even at the worst I encouraged her that somehow, God would come through - I could feel it. And He did. Out of a pool of 462 applicants in a town of 50,000, *my mother* was chosen to be the business manager/instructor for the only scuba diving school in the entire area. Her new job is about as awesome as they come. She not only gets paid to learn a new career, scuba instruction, but will be taking 10 paid vacations a year to take clients to places like Australia, the South Pacific, Hawaii and Florida. That we moved here after Dan drowned, and now she has a new career in *underwater life support* is not lost on me. Praise God - if that isn't direct evidence of his Love than I don't know what is. My beautiful mother has suffered so - this bit of security, adventure and hope for quality of life was exactly what she needed. The owner is so nice he won't ever make her dive in the huge brown river that took my brother, though it is the local attraction for his business. We also got to meet the diver who pulled my brother out of the water (bless him, if his body hadn't been recovered or recovered quickly it would have been even more tormenting) and my mom will get to be a volunteer search and rescue diver herself. I don't know what I'm doing. I was supposed to go back to school to finish 8 credits but I blew it off - until January. For some reason I lost my motivation to go to law school. I want to do something else. I don't know what. I will keep praying and maybe God will show me the path. I'd endure just about anything if I could have him back. Death is so unforgiving. A few minutes of being underwater, unconscious, and you can't come back. I've been re-reading "The Lovely Bones" and I really like the way that novel describes Heaven. The little murdered girl wonders why her dearly beloved grandparents aren't in her heaven. It's because she can't let go of watching people on Earth - her family, the investigation, her school. I like to think that Dan is here sometimes, I can almost feel him. But when he is not, he must be enjoying hot rods, powdered mountains and babes in bikinis. There must be babes in his heaven. I am waiting to find the perfect landscape tattoo artist, and then I will get a memorial tattoo in Dan's honor. It will be a silhouette of a snowboarder popping off an impossible cliff, with a burning, brilliant variegated sunset in the background. Dan Krueger, 1986 - 2004, it will say. He was such a good brother. I'm so grateful God has shown himself to me in the blessings and messages, so I know Dan continues on and I will see him again. I just wish he could "enjoy" life. Maybe heaven has all the good parts of life and none of the bad. But you can still feel things. I mourn the loss of his feeling - he loved to feel. We all do. That Dan's opportunity was taken away makes me feel like I should make the most out of life - but I don't know what to do. I'm just saving all the money I'm earning, and being here for mom. Thanks for caring, Lu, and I hope you all are holding up okay. Oh man, now I'm looking at the pictures to post the link. Pictures hurt so bad. These basic ones I've seen, I can hardly bear to look at them, and trying to look at the hundreds of family photos we have in the closet is like trying to breathe underwater. I just can't do it yet. CRY CRY CRY CRY CRY Man, it hurts.

Things were going well until our lawyers got into the mix but I do not want to put the blame on them - they have a job to protect their respective clients and my belief is their motivations were honest. The reality was something else, though. Of course the way I see it is their lawyer had his nose out of joint because he was not in the mix initially ;-) Not my fault he was out of the country! dee and kirkhall - I think they'd chew glass before admitting they can't find a house as nice as ours but that makes me sound like one of those *endowment principal* sellers so I won't say that! He calls himself a 'recovering lawyer' and now sells corporate internet cloud stuff (or something). The reality is, he's a lawyer down to his toes, but pulls out the small town KS boy stuff when it serves him. He had my husband dancing to his tune until night before last - pushed him too far and questioned his integrity thinking he could shame him into concessions. DH's middle name is integrity. The guy shot his own foot. Until then we were willing to look for middle ground on whatever might come up. Ideally, negotiation allows everyone to feel they've won their important points and compromised in areas they can live with but after making our compromises on timing to accommodate their needs they wanted significant financial concessions and we drew our line in the sand. Adaciafun we thought it was a beneficial arrangement for them also - there was no reason for us to 'screw' them but somehow that's what they thought. Or maybe they found something they like better, wanted a way out so asked for something outrageous knowing we'd say no. kris_ma that's wonderful that your realtor worked so diligently and you were able to benefit financially. I have to say that's my one fear - that we will not end up in the same financial position as we would with this sale. That's not a good way to look at it and I know that - this sale didn't happen so what might have been shouldn't even be a factor in my head - but that's hard to let go. ncrealestateguy I don't know why they didn't want the homeowners warranty but my guess is they figured there was a way to get money for a brand new furnace (and then some) out of us and then could live with the existing one till it died - perhaps 5 years down the line, perhaps 5 months. The deal breaker was our saying we would not kick 12k back to them at closing and their saying they would not accept our HVAC offer to split cost. Complete impasse. I've read and reread your post and am still confused. I understand a lender might not commit to a loan far out from a closing, but how far is too far? Will they commit to a loan 30 days from closing? 2 weeks? What's 'normal'? I am not clear on the addendum you suggest. And does a buyer EVER agree to earnest money going to seller in the event of anything other than out and out default? Not obtaining the mortgage is not default and in that case standard language (as I understand it) says earnest $ reverts to buyer. I can't imagine anyone ever signing to that but will ask here also. Had we been able to collect earnest $ if their deal fell through, that would have made us much more confident that we could recoup losses but it still wouldn't have changed the outcome. Just curious - is earnest $ percentage standard throughout the country?

I wouldn't wory about an irrigation device unless I lived in the SE of England. And even then I'd consider buying a water butt or getting a 1/4 ton drum from a factory or something, bury it at the side of the house and put a connection into it from the bath and shower waste. Then I'd either pump it to the main plot or have some sort of ducting take it there. But thinking about that, the cost would come to something in the region of one or two thousand if I were to have it done professionally I imagine. But just having a butt on a still and draining it periodically with an hosepipe, would come to about one or two hundred. Maybe £50 to get a plumber link it to your grey water. If the OP is trying to set himself up in business he should have said. It's a good idea but not a staple earner. If he's moving inrto a new house and can afford to hire a small digger, he should consider putting land drain pipes in to take his bath and washing machine water. But not if he is thinking of going organic. Soap is OK (I think) but detergent is full of phosphates. Even dishwasher soap is a fertiliser. (It's used to make homebrew.)

Thank you Annie and Dave for the words of encouragement. After doing some serious thinking about it, I wonder if having too much water in the canner caused the problem. I had the empty pints jars in the pressure canner covered with water like I do with BWB to be extra careful on keeping them sterile. When I took the jars out, filled them with soup then returned them to the canner, I didn't remove any of the water so instead of a couple of inches of water, I had it going well over the tops of the filled jars. I think I'll just take a break and stick with BWB recipes for a while like you suggested, Dave. Annie, there was some diced onion and celery along with the chicken along with the stock. I made sure that there was only half veggies and chicken and half broth in each jar. It was the Ball Blue Book recipe. DH was in stage 4 cancer so they removed his right ear and the ear canal. That's when they found microscopic cancer tumors on the lining of his brain. Chemo and another surgery were out of the question so they put him under radiation. He now weighs almost 30 lbs. less than me - arrgh! His last scheduled radiation treatment is next Tuesday and, hopefully we'll get good news from the doctors. He should have been dead many, many years ago due to motorcycle crashes when he was racing them for 8 years, being a Army Ranger in Vietnam, the crash of plane he had reserved to fly then decided not to fly that day and the people who decided to take it up stalled and it killed the four of them plus their dog, his many heart attacks starting when he was 38, even when he had one that lasted 3 days and the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for him, well, you get the idea. Talk about a cat with nine lives, well, we're hoping this continues the streak.